Man City ‘complete’ director of football agreement with new man set for second Premier League stint

Aadam Haladh
Viana Newcastle
Viana playing for Newcastle

Exclusive’s from both the highly reliable David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano are set to change the course of the future for Manchester City.

Earlier this week, Ornstein put out the news that City sporting director Txiki Begiristain is set to leave the club at the end of the season, with Romano then reporting his replacement will be current Sporting Lisbon man Hugo Viana.

The agreement is complete, with Viana playing a pivotal role in bringing the likes of Victor Gyokeres, Morten Hjulmand and Ousmane Diomande to the Portugese capital.

Begiristain has been at City since 2012, and played an important role in convincing Pep Guardiola to come to the Etihad in 2016 after he had been on a sabbatical.

Bergiristain has been at the forefront of building the club up over the last 10 years, but leaves with the club on a crossroads with Guardiola’s own City future up in the air, as well as the 115 charges for alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial fair play rules that loom around the club.

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Guardiola and Bergiristain also worked together at Barcelona, having both played for the Catalan giants, sharing a great relationship.

The Spanish sporting director played a part in bringing together the entire current City team, showing how large a void he will leave behind with hardly any of City’s signings in the last decade to be deemed as failures.

His replacement, Viana, is no stranger to English football having played for Newcastle between 2002 and 2006, with the Magpies paying £8.5m for him at the age of 19. We’re not so sure he’ll be able to get such a bargain for a top teenager for that price now, but it is City and we’ve already heard about them FFP charges.

Viana also went onto play for Valencia, Osasuna and Braga, before finishing his playing career in the Middle East with Al Ahli and Al-Wasl in 2016.

He was appointed the sporting director of Belenenses in 2017, though he spent just six months there before returning in the role for Sporting in 2018.

Over the past five years, Sporting have made a €200m profit thanks to big money sales of star players Bruno Fernandes, Pedro Porro, Matheus Nunes and Manuel Ugarte.

With the quartet all playing in England’s top flight now, it’s understandable why City have their sights set on Viana. The 41-year-old played a part in Sporting winning their first league title in 19 years back in 2021, a crown they reclaimed last campaign.

Manchester City Pep Guardiola

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